1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to computerized systems and data processing. More particularly, embodiments provided herein are related to telecommunications.
2. Description of the Related Art
Being readily available for telephone contact has become increasingly important for a growing number of people who have a significant need to be reachable regardless of their location. Many such persons have a telephone for business, a telephone for home, a mobile cellular telephone in the car, a transportable telephone for personal wear, as well as stations providing telephone service through computers. Business people and professionals at times have multiple offices and may additionally work at a home office. All of these telephones and computer stations generally have different telephone numbers and Internet addresses. This requires a caller to know or look up multiple numbers and addresses, and frequently to make multiple calls in order to reach a person.
One attempt to facilitate telecommunications is the provision of a directory stored locally on a user's telephone unit. The directory is in essence an electronically stored phone book containing the names and numbers of individuals or entities the user frequently calls. The directory may be manually customized by the user or may be automatically built over time by the telephone unit itself. In the latter case, the telephone unit simply stores all outgoing numbers and/or incoming numbers and names (if available). When the user later makes a call to number stored in the directory, the related name may be displayed to the user. By verifying the number dialed (or selected from the directory) against the displayed information, the user can confirm that the call is being placed to the right person or entity.
While the use of the locally stored directory in this manner provides some assurance of having placed a call correctly it is limited to information which is actually stored in the directory. Further, because the local directories are of limited size (i.e., memory), it is not feasible to store all assigned numbers in the directories. As a result, users often make calls to a number or entity not contained in the local directory. In such cases, the directory is of no value and merely indicates to the user that no information is available for the number dialed.
To remedy the foregoing problem, remotely located directories were introduced. These remotely located directories are accessed each time a call is placed by a user authorized to use the directory. Because the remotely located directory can be contained in large databases, the volume of assigned numbers and associated names contained therein is significantly greater than that of the locally stored directories. Further, the databases need not be singular but can be made up of a network of databases maintained by different entities Theoretically, it is therefore possible to give users access to every assigned number in the world. Thus, the likelihood of locating the number/name somewhere on the network is high.
However, while remotely located directories provide access to voluminous information they typically come at a cost to the user. In particular, the time to access the network can be high, resulting in increased overhead to the user. Further, a network connection is needed to access the remotely located directories, thereby increasing network traffic. End users may also find remotely located directories undesirable because they typically have no control over the manner in which the information is organized or provided.
Therefore, there is a need to combine the advantages of local directories with remote directories in the context of telecommunications.